Educational institutions have student recruitment goals that are imposed by a number of factors internal and external to the institution. Some of these factors may be related to diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, geographic location of student candidate (which may be based on one or more digits of the student candidate's home ZIP Code), sports ability, scholastic ability, etc. Each educational institution has a unique set of criteria to be met in order to attract the type of student that will allow the institution to meet its particular goals.
Traditionally, educational institutions have relied on various isolated shotgun techniques to attract students. Some of these techniques are mailing a blank application to any student candidate who expressed even the slightest interest in attending the educational institution and using an automatic phone dialing service to ascertain a student candidate's level of interest in attending the educational institution. These methods are expensive and limited in their ability to fulfill the educational institution's recruitment goals.
The present invention relates to college and university student recruitment and is directed towards increasing applications for admission as well as achieving the educational institution's recruitment goals.
A college or university receives inquiries from prospective student candidates expressing an interest in attending the college. These inquiries can be received, for example, as early as the candidate's freshman year in high school and in some instances even earlier. These inquiries come from various sources such as correspondence, e-mail, telephone, contact with a recruiter, or the receipt of PSAT or SAT scores from a student.
Depending on the source of the inquiry, various information about the candidate may be provided, e.g., the candidate's high school class, age, contact information, gender, race, ethnicity, relationships with alumni, scholastic and sports interests, etc. All of the available information, from whatever source, is typically entered into a database of candidates, often called an “inquiry pool”. This information is used by the institution to determine both the suitability of the candidate from the institution's perspective and the genuineness of the candidate's interest. The number of candidates in an inquiry pool may be 100,000 or more.
Since institutions typically defer sending an application to a candidate until the fall of the candidate's senior year in high school, candidates may remain in the institution's inquiry pool for several years. A continuing problem is the qualification of the candidate against the enrollment objectives of the institution since both the selection criteria of the institution and the qualifications of the candidate vary over time. Telephone polling services are often used in order to qualify the interest of candidates in a particular institution. However, such attempts to qualify the candidates are often time consuming, i.e., it may take the telephone polling service up to two months to call each candidate in an inquiry pool, and the expense can be quite significant, often more than two dollars per candidate. Thus, it is highly desirable to qualify the candidates in the inquiry pool in a more cost-effective manner so as to eliminate unqualified candidates and those candidates whose interest may not be genuine, thereby reducing the expense of contacting them and the delay in contacting qualified and genuinely interested candidates.
Another problem is that of maintaining the interest of the candidates in the inquiry pool until such time as the applications are sent out to the student candidates. Universities today are highly competitive and strive to maintain the interest of qualified candidates in this often prolonged period through repeated contact with the candidate. Such contact may include the mailing of brochures or other information on various aspects of the institution, or hosting receptions, college fairs, open houses, or campus visits for prospective student candidates. These various forms of contact give rise to the costs of selecting appropriate materials, mailing a broad spectrum of materials, and incurring professional staff travel expenses.
Another problem is created by the generic nature of the typical application and its accompanying materials, as the material and the application itself is usually prepared in the typical “one size fits all” approach. This lack of personalization for the interest of the candidate increases the expense and typically reduces the interest of the candidate.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to obviate many of the above problems associated with the generally known methods of soliciting applications for enrollment and to provide novel methods for qualifying applicants for enrollment at an institution of higher learning.
In accordance with the teachings of the present invention, a method of evaluating the interest of enrollment candidates which drastically reduces both the cost of ascertaining the interest of the candidates and the time needed to complete the evaluation of the candidates.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel method of evaluating the enrollment interest of candidates based on the information initially provided by the candidate.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method of economically evaluating from time to time the continued enrollment interest of candidates.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a novel method of motivating candidates to provide information relating to their continued interest in enrollment.
It is a yet a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method of generating and delivering an application for enrollment at an institution of higher learning.
It is yet still a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method of increasing the number of applications received by an institution from its inquiry pool, and for evaluating the application solicitation program.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method of electronically evaluating and maintaining the interest of the candidates in an institution's inquiry pool and providing the option of electronic application.
These and many other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims, the appended drawings, and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.